Biden administration ends use of 2 ICE jails in bid to improve conditions for immigrant detainees

The Biden administration on Thursday announced it would discontinue the use of two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) jails in Massachusetts and Georgia as part of a broader effort to improve conditions inside the U.S. civil immigration detention system, the largest in the world.

In a memo obtained by CBS News, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas directed ICE to stop holding immigrant detainees at a jail in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, and to end cooperation contracts with the Bristol County Sheriff's Office, which operates the facility. Mayorkas said the jail, which state officials said violated the civil rights of detainees during an altercation last year, is of "minimal operational significance" to ICE. "Moreover, there is ample evidence that the Detention Center's treatment of detained individuals and the conditions of detention are unacceptable," Mayorkas added in his memo to Tae Johnson, the acting ICE director.